A Jaybird, Jelly Baby, and Key
by Diary
Summary: Sebastian Moran, James Moriarty, and the requisite tag-along kid. Complete.


Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock.

* * *

It all started one night when I was drunk.

I had stumbled out of some bar, trying to find a place to piss, when I saw him.

Six men, all of them carrying knives, surrounded him in a dark alley. If I weren't drunk, I might've paid attention to the look on his face. I might have walked away.

The most important thing anyone needs to know about me is that, if given an IQ test, I'll score average, but put me in any situation, big or small, professional or social, and unless the correct response is to shoot someone, I will bungle things up. Point blank: I'm an idiot. The few times I do show common sense, I'm not, really, it's just luck deciding to give me a bit of a break.

Case in point:

There was a man, and armed men surrounded him. These men were taller and heavier, in addition to the weapons. He was cornered, and even if anyone did come when they heard his screams, they probably wouldn't get there in time.

As noted, I didn't pay attention at the time, but this psychopathic sociopath was gently smiling, body language at ease. Whether or not people pay attention, everyone they met has a moment where, soon after meeting, they do or say something that establishes who they are at the core.

I'm not sure if this constitutes irony or not, but my thought, at the time, was that, obviously, the man was an idiot.

Another thing I'm not sure of is what was going through my head that night. Here's what happened: I drew my illegally obtained weapon and fired three shots, one on the ground, one through the finger of the men I thought might be the ringleader, and one through a tree branch. Let me say I did intend to hit the tree branch, even if I can't say why. Call me an idiot, fine, but I tend to overreact when anyone implies my shooting is anything less than stellar. I've always made my target ever since I mastered a BB gun at age nine, and I never randomly shoot, always having a target in mind.

The men ran off, leaving me with a smiling man.

"Hello," he said, calm as he pleased, stepping into the moonlight. He had an accent I thought might be Irish and was average-sized, slim, and black-haired. His eyes were dark. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

A chill went down my spine.

"Who are you?"

"Jim Moriarty," he answered, laughing. "You don't know it, but you just did yourself the biggest favour you could ever do."

Assuming 'Jim Moriarty' someday isn't discovered to be an alias, his fourth sentence to me was a lie. If I'd known that, I would have walked away.

As it was, I walked down to a nearby café with him, went to the bathroom, and sat down across from him as the server brought coffee and croissants. "Homeless discharged soldier, I'd say dishonourable," he said, practically chirping as he buttered a croissant. "Not in contact with any of your family, and no friends unless you count a little girl who forces you into sharing her package of jelly babies every morning."

My flight instincts kicked in, and before I could blink, I found him with his hand quite firmly wrapped around my wrist.

"Don't be overdramatic," he said, sounding scornful. It'd be sometime before I'd realise how rich that statement was coming from him. We've established my idiocy, right? "Until sixteen minutes ago, I didn't even know you existed. You want me to tell you how I know all this?"

And he did. The best way I can describe it is that normal, observant people can look at someone and see what sort of person they are, maybe put together a few personal facts. Jim went a step farther and saw all the personal facts; whether he saw who the person was or not, I still don't know.

"I'm a consulting criminal," he continued. "I help criminals who interest me. For every brilliant serial killer and rapist who never gets caught, for every untraceable confidence man and woman, there are a million stupid people who can't even pull off a simple bank robbery without someone holding their hands."

For a moment, I thought he might be joking, but I took a moment and looked at the facts. Sharp-dressed man, out past the time most law-abiding people were locked in their homes, surrounded by armed men, unfazed by all this, and his reaction to a drunk man firing shots was to take the man for coffee. Yeah, when all the pieces were put together, I found the idea of him being a criminal mastermind to be the only thing that came close to making sense.

I had no idea what to say to any of this.

"I've told you all about me," he said, tilting his head. "Now, why don't we start with you? Don't worry, there's no need to rush. We can start simple. What's your name?"

"Sebastian Moran."

I suspect a nurse at the hospital I was born at was the one who named me. I also suspect said nurse loved Victorian novels.

The little girl he mentioned, she often called me 'Seb'. In the army and school, people called me 'Moron'.

Smiling, he looked down at his watch. "There's a cab I have to catch." He slid something over. "Here's my card. Call me once you've slept your hangover off. I'll be waiting."

0

"Hallo, Seb," the little girl, named Nydia, says, jumping with an invisible skip rope. "You're late today. If you've got a boyfriend or girlfriend, I get to meet 'em."

"No," Sebastian says, leaning against the wall to shield his eyes from the sun. At her look, he clarifies, "No, I don't have one."

She nods, accepting this. Nydia Winston is ten years old, has dark black skin, and wears bright lime green glasses. Her hair goes to the middle of her back, and she wears cornrows with brightly coloured beads. Today she's wearing a plaid skirt with yellow bike shorts underneath, a white t-shirt with black dots, and a pair of brown sandals with fuzzy hot pink socks.

"I've decided to go to New Baskerville when I'm seventeen."

"Never heard of it."

"They say they have a magic bloodhound there," Nydia tells him. "Or maybe it's a different place. Dunno. But I reckon I can bribe her with lavender apples to do me bidding. Then, I'll never have to go to school again."

"Speaking of which," he says, starting to dig out his cell phone.

"It's nine thirty," she tells him. "And we're having a Pepper Rally today, so, I figure I got 'til ten to get back. Anyway, if I go to New York, I can get lavender dirt-cheap. Then, all I have to do is learn how to sew so that I can put the apple slices on the lavender."

"Nydia, even I can see the holes in your plan."

"Well, until you're ready to help me find a better way of avoiding school, it's not nice to criticise," she retorts.

"School might help you learn to make a decent plan."

"And actually talking to people and trying to find a job might make you nicer, but you don't see me trying to crush your dreams, d'ya?"

"I talk to you."

"I hit you with my skipping rope if you don't."

Close enough. She pretends to hit him with her invisible skipping rope and that tends to attract other people's attention. The last thing Sebastian wants is anyone paying attention to him spending time with a prepubescent child.

He doesn't fool himself into thinking he's a good man; he's not. Yet, he does have standards. He's never been one to pick on those who aren't bothering him unless there's good money involved, and he's never been one for sexual dominance no matter how good the money. He wouldn't say he'd never hurt a child, because, under the right circumstances, he would. He'd never hurt the annoying little girl who happened to semi-adopt him as a sounding board, however.

"Speaking of looking for work, I did meet someone last night. Might be work. Don't go mental if I don't show up tomorrow."

"What kind of work?"

"The kind that involves shooting, probably."

For a long moment, she jumps in silence. Then, she stops, digging out her package of jelly babies. "Hold this for a minute," she says, handing him the package. He does, and she digs out a plastic bag. "Take a bite of one, and put it in here."

He obeys.

"If you aren't back by this Sunday, I'm taking this to Scotland Yard."

"Scotland Yard is-"

"Fine, I'm taking this to the police here," she says, rolling her eyes. She jerks her arm, and he suspects she's just slashed him with her invisible skipping robe.

"Could I have some more?"

"Sure, just don't eat all the blue ones," she says, handing the package over.

0

My first job involved following a cabbie around, new pistol firmly packed strapped to me.

"Don't hurt this man," he said, showing me a realistic sketch of a man who wasn't the cabbie. "It'd be a shame if he were hurt, but as long as it's not you who does it, it'll be fine," he sing-songs, his smile sharper than the night before.

The sketch was of a tall, gangly man with black hair, blue eyes, and very pronounced cheekbones. Assuming this sketch was truly realistic, the man obviously had some issues with food. "Who is he?"

"Hopefully, a new playmate," he answered.

So, I followed the cabbie around. It turned out that he liked to kill people via sadistic choice.

That assignment, however, was nothing in comparison to the second.

0

"Idealists," Jim says, smirking. He tosses a few more crumbs down at the pigeons. "They want to save the world. There's a fine line between terrorism and activism, and the law often makes even the most benign of activists into terrorists."

"You're going to help them burn the building down."

"No, of course not," he says, scornfully. "That would require me getting my hands dirty. I'm going to make sure the building being burnt down isn't connected to them."

Some part of Sebastian wonders why, but he doesn't ask. "What's my job?"

"I need someone to steal a very special bird," Jim answers.

0

I could've just killed Maggie Gold.

The reason I chose to hide in her vents instead, waiting for her to leave, is that I didn't trust Jim Moriarty. If caught, I'd've rather been caught for stealing an exotic parrot than for killing an older woman.

To this day, I still believe that parrot knew I was there. It kept looking at the vents. "Mummy buy Jaybird food," it kept insisting.

"Now, now, darling," she'd say, walking over to pet it. "You have plenty of food, see? Would you like a treat?"

An hour later, it switched. "Mummy buy Jaybird toys."

Finally, the woman got a phone call and left, though not before debating taking the damn bird with her.

"Jaybird stay," it insisted.

Once she was gone, I realised the cage wasn't locked. The bird flew right over to the vent. "Bad person," it said. "Bad person."

And then, it went crazy, knocking over vases, DVDs, and dishes.

Five minutes later, I caught it and wondered if I should try to clean up the mess. I couldn't, aside from possibly the DVDs. The dishes and vases were broke, and for all I knew, the DVDs had been in a certain order.

Well, Moriarty hadn't ordered a clean job; his exact words were, 'Bring me the little parrot, unharmed. Everything else is trifling details.'

"Bad person," the bird repeated as I left.

0

After all that, he killed the bird. It seemed to me that defeated the purpose of me bringing it unharmed, but my approach to jobs has always been to find out exactly what the employer wants me to do and do it.

I'm still not sure what exactly he did, but planting that bird in the right place managed to get sixteen government officials arrested. I assume he also managed to get some in his pocket. The eco-group blew up the building and got away scot-free, and one of the sixteen committed suicide.

That's when I truly saw the power of James Moriarty.

0

Nydia does jumping jacks as Sebastian drinks the soda she brought.

"I need you to be careful; if I ever piss him off," he obligingly flinches as her invisible skipping robe hits him, "it's probably you he'll go after."

"Think he'll offer me sweets?"

"Why would that matter," he inquires, exasperated.

Shrugging, she replies, "I dunno. I just thought if a psycho bird killer is going to do horrible things, the least he could do is offer me sweets."

"He's done worse things than kill a bird, Nydia."

"Then, why are you working for him?"

"Because I'm not a good person."

"You're the closest thing I have to a friend," she answers. "You think I'm an annoying kid, and I think you're going to regret working for a psycho. But if I don't talk to you, I don't talk to anyone, and- well, I like talking to someone."

"Glad to see your moral compass is perfectly in tune," he replies, sarcastically.

"The school nurse thinks I'm in the loo with a bad case of diarrhoea."

Sighing, he finishes his soda.

0

"How could the idiot mistake the doctor for dear Sherlock? Since when has he ever shown any interest in lasses?"

I still wonder if Jim might have had bipolar disorder or something. He could out-act any of the Oscar winners, but sometimes, his sudden mood swings struck me as very real. After Sherlock Holmes did something involving Asian smugglers, Jim was irritated and kept pacing.

Finally, I asked, "Would you feel better if I shot the old woman?"

He smiled in response, and I made a mental note to watch my tongue even harder when around him. "Yes," he answered, much calmer and happier.

Right, I thought with a sigh.

Killing the old woman gave me no pleasure, but it was too late to back out. I killed her, and Jim went back to what I can only assume was his normal self.

0

"Why are you standing," Nydia inquires, hopping from one foot to the other.

"I think I might die tonight," Sebastian tells her, withdrawing a key from his pocket. "If I don't come back by Sunday, I want you to take this to St. Joseph's bank. You can get there even without bus fare. Show it to a teller, and they'll take you to the lockbox."

She pauses in her movements, studying him, not taking the key. "Seb, are you involved in those bombings? The ones where the people have bombs strapped to them and have to read off a prompter?"

He doesn't answer.

"That old, blind woman, those people in the building with her, they didn't deserve to die. I mean, sometimes, I want my teachers and the other kids to die, but I don't actually do anything, yeah?" Then, softer, she says, "I don't want you to die."

"Yeah," he answers, blankly. "I'm involved. I was the one who put the bombs on them, and I'm the one who killed that blind woman. And I'm probably going to die, Nydia. Take the key."

She does, turning to walk away. Then, however, she turns back around. "I still have that jelly baby. If you aren't here by Sunday, I will go to the police, Seb."

0

"Miss Adler is quite the specimen," Jim told me, after I wasn't blown up by Sherlock bloody Holmes.

"I assume she was the caller?"

"Oh, yes, dreadful waste," he told me. "In the end, she'll be useless, but for now, I'm going to have some fun."

"And Holmes and Doctor Watson staying alive are part of that?"

The doctor revealed who he was as I strapped the bomb on his paralysed body. He was more of a threat than the consulting criminal and detective, but I doubted Jim would be interested in hearing that.

I knew soldiers, men and women willing to die, torture, and kill for their country, their family, their idea of right. Plenty of atheists in foxholes, but this went beyond religion. Soldiers had something higher to them that they submitted to, and they were even more terrifying if they loved what they were willing to die for. I was willing to die for Jim, but I wasn't a soldier.

Unlike me, he was, and his concern for his consultant had to do with love.

I don't know if Jim planned it or not, if he even realised it or not, but dealing with him was a lot like dealing with that damn jaybird parrot.

"Naturally," he answered. "I need to protect my own."

"Your own?"

He merely smiled.

0

The Adler case was confusing, with from what I understand, she's still alive, but what's important is what came after it.

I was cleaning my rifle while Jim had an anime show on as he stared a chessboard. He'd tried teaching me how to play, but as it's been established, me and strategy couldn't stand one another unless I was following very detailed orders.

Suddenly, he shut the laptop and snapped his fingers to get my attention. "Some people who are much, much better than you are about to burst in. Be a good boy, Seb, and let them take me. You're worthless to them. I imagine that small child of yours would be sad if you didn't show up tomorrow."

Instincts warred as I found myself putting the gun down.

"Good boy," he said as the room filled with a gas that knocked me out.

Once I came to, I found myself locked in a chest under the floor and Jim was gone. So was my favourite rifle, unfortunately.

0

"Are they allowed to do that? I mean, I don't know the difference between civil liberties and rights, but don't even people who kill blind old ladies have them?"

"I killed that woman, Nydia," Sebastian snaps, head against the wall.

She shrugs, not pausing in her skipping. "And that idiot teacher who can't explain the difference 'tween liberties and rights says that I'm going to end up with men between my legs. I reckon that's her way of saying I'm gonna end up a prozzie. Well, piss on her, 'cause I'm gonna do great things when I finally get free of school. You know that, or else you wouldn't waste your time 'round here."

"Nydia, I'd be here whether you were or weren't," he tells her. "You're nothing special, kid."

"Yeah, I am. And so are you," she says, kneeling down. Carefully, she pats him. "It's alright, Seb. If he doesn't come out, soon, you'll find something else. If I need to, I'll help you, but I'll be sure to find something that doesn't mean killing blind, old women."

He sighs and edges against the wall, away from her hand. "Just remember: If anything happens to me, go to the bank."

"I still have that jelly baby."

0

"Moran."

"Come and pick me up; bring donuts."

It was 4:13, and I had no idea where Jim was. No way to trace the call, or at least, no way for me to trace it.

It took me three and a half hours to find him. He was unrecognisable.

I'd seen people tortured before; the ones who were tortured as badly as he was never made it long. They'd die or kill themselves or end up so mentally broke they couldn't even use the toilet by themselves.

Some part of me wonders if what would happen later was due to the older Holmes brother. It's more likely that everything was Jim's plan, the torture having no effect on him other than bodily, but I still wonder.

He pathetically tried to smack me when he saw the lack of donuts.

I got him to some people he deemed moderately trustworthy, and they got him patched up. Bones healed, no scars, nutrition levels back to normal and so on, still the same bizarre, sadistic bastard he ever was.

"I'm going to get Sherlock Holmes to kill himself."

"Like the cabbie tried?"

He grinned, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Oh, no," he answered. "He's been through the fire, hasn't he?" Sighing, he reached over and patted my knee. "Sadly, he's too ordinary. There was a parent with a child, once. A fire broke out, and even though this parent loved the child more than anything, they ran until they were safe. They didn't even think about the child until then. Once they did, they tried to go back in, but it was too late."

"He doesn't have a kid, does he," I asked, my mind going to Nydia standing in a fiery building. She'd probably die, I realised. Stupid kid would likely pass Jim's test better than Holmes had.

"He has his doctor and his little makeshift family. I thought," he said, somewhat wistfully, "that it would be something more understandable. But in the end, he's just ordinary."

If I had sense, if I weren't an idiot, that's when I definitely would have walked away.

But I didn't, and soon after, with Doctor Watson in my line of sight, I heard a gunshot. Jim killed himself, and Holmes jumped, just as Jim had planned. Later, though, I found a note from Jim, telling me Holmes wasn't really dead.

The question is, then: Is Jim truly gone?

I don't know. All I know is that, if Holmes is still alive, I'm going to find him so that he and I can settle some things.

0

Nydia looks at the empty spot and frowns as she jumps, aware of the key in her skort pocket as she does so.

A car pulls up, and a woman exits, tapping her heel to get Nydia's attention.

"Oh, what a pretty girl you are," she murmurs. "Would you like some sweets?"

Nydia smiles and walks over, dragging her imaginary skip rope behind her.

0

They get to a building, and the woman leads her in by hand. A well-dressed man with an umbrella is waiting.

When he looks up and sees her, he stands. "Jim Moriarty," he begins.

"Tell him you're alive," she interrupts. "I know I'm just a kid. Seb calls me stupid. But if I leave here, I'll find a way to tell him. You're evil, but I reckon he loves you."

Taken aback, he looks at her for long moment. "Brave words, Miss Winston. Tell me, do you know whom you're speaking to?"

She rolls her eyes. "Some great criminal mastermind. You make a big deal about being a consulting criminal. Please, anyone can tell someone else how to commit a crime. If Seb didn't hate that Doctor Wilson so much, I'd tell him to try to work for that House bloke. It takes real brains to know how to solve a crime."

"Holmes, Miss Winston. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. And haven't you heard? The former is dead."

"And so are you, but here we are. I don't know where Seb is or what he's doing, but I know I will try to make sure he knows about you being alive."

He looks at her for a long moment. "You want to protect him. What if I told you that part of that is me remaining dead for a bit?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

"Be that as it may," he says, "I do plan to reveal myself to him in good time. You're free to leave, Miss Winston, but if you do, I'll be gone long before you can find him. Or you can help me with something, and when the time is right, we can reveal my- revival to him together. You have a key in your left pocket. You should have gone to the bank three days ago, but you haven't. I've also been told you have a jelly baby with his DNA. Those are indications that he holds some measure of trust, perhaps, even affection, in regards to you."

"Alright," she says, quietly, after a moment. "What do you want?"


End file.
